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0:00
This is Dayuma. Dayuma is from the Waorani, an indigenous nation in Ecuador.
0:06
Sometime in the 1940s, when she was still quite young, Dayuma fled the Waorani to
0:11
escape violence. She spent some years working on an hacienda. In the mid -1950s,
0:17
Dayuma was contacted by Rachel Saint, a missionary from the US who had been trained
0:21
by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, or SIL for short. The two became friends, and
0:27
saints started learning the Waorani. for short. The two became friends and Saint started learning
0:32
the Waorani language from her. Eventually, Dayuma converted to Christianity. A few years later,
0:38
in what is known as Operation Aoka, five other missionaries, including Rachel Saint's brother, attempted
0:44
to establish contact with the Waorani. It did not go well. The Waorani killed all
0:49
five missionaries. The story galvanized US evangelicals and it stirred up a bit of a
0:55
media frenzy. In 1957, Saint and Dayuma toured the US. In 1957,
1:01
Saint and Dayuma toured the U .S. They were featured on the TV show This
1:05
Is Your Life and Dayuma gave her testimony on stage at Billy Graham's New York
1:09
Crusade in front of a packed Madison Square Garden. All of this secured an outpouring
1:14
of funding for further missionary work. Here were two women, the missionary and the person
1:19
she had led to Christ, who had suffered from the violence of the Waorani and
1:23
yet both still wanted to go back and share the gospel with the very people
1:27
who had perpetrated that violence. For
1:33
evangelicals, it was a compelling story that highlighted the value of SIL's missionary work.
1:39
But if you ask people from SIL, they'll tell you that they aren't missionaries. They'll
1:44
tell you that they're linguists. The
1:50
connection between linguistics and Christian missionary work goes back a long ways. If you watched
1:55
the video on the language parasite, we talked about We talked
2:01
about how, arguably, modern linguistics arose from 19th century efforts to compare different
2:07
languages and determine if they had some kind of shared ancestry, doing with languages basically
2:12
the same thing Darwin was doing with biological species. And we mentioned how one of
2:17
the things that made this possible was the publication of a number of books that
2:21
compiled a bunch of data on a bunch of different languages. Data that used to
2:26
be dispersed here and there was not available in a single place, which made it
2:31
a lot easier for scholars to compare
2:37
and contrast languages. What I didn't mention though is that a sizable chunk of that
2:42
data traces back to the work of Christian missionaries, data they had gathered over the
2:47
previous few centuries, especially during the so -called Age of Exploration. So the contribution
2:53
of missionaries to linguistics was significant from the start. How significant is hard to say,
2:59
but it's probably not all that crazy to think that linguistics would look like a
3:02
lot more. It's hard to say, but it's probably not all that crazy to think
3:05
that linguistics would look a lot different from what it is today if it hadn't
3:09
been for those Christian missionaries. A lot of that work was essentially didactic, you know,
3:15
teaching material. Basically, missionaries would try to learn the language of whoever it was they
3:20
were trying to reach, and they would write down what they learned about the language
3:23
for the next generation of missionaries. Their work has its share of problems. For starters,
3:29
these missionaries were trained in the Greco -Latin tradition. Not that there's any - Missionaries
3:34
were trained in the Greco -Latin tradition. Not that there's anything wrong with that of
3:38
course, but it meant that they were trained to study languages in a certain way,
3:42
to look for the kinds of things that existed in Latin and Greek. When they
3:46
encountered languages that were completely different from anything they had encountered before, sometimes they may
3:52
have tried a little too hard to make those languages fit into the Greco -Latin
3:57
mold, like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Not that they
4:02
were entirely oblivious to this problem.
4:08
A famous example of someone who was keenly aware of the issue is the Jesuit
4:13
Antonio del Rincon. In 1595, Rincon published his Arte Mexicana,
4:19
a grammar of Nahuatl that analyzes the language on its own terms rather than trying
4:23
to make sense of it through the Greco -Latin mold. In fact, in the introduction,
4:28
he explicitly states that languages are so different from one another that it's impossible to
4:33
have a single model that will work for us. one another that it's impossible to
4:37
have a single model that will work for all of them at the same time.
4:41
Admittedly though, in his time Rincon was probably more of the exception than the rule.
4:46
He was a native speaker of Nahuatl, and many of his Jesuit peers stuck much
4:50
more closely to the Greco -Latin model than he did. Beyond that bias towards the
4:55
Greco -Latin model, another problem you encounter in the work of these missionaries is the
5:00
kind of value judgment many of them had against the languages and more importantly the
5:05
people they encountered. against the languages, and more importantly, the people, they encountered. For
5:10
example, speaking of European missionaries in North America, the late historian Edward Gray wrote that,
5:17
quote, Jesuits generally derided the languages, characterizing the polysynthetic character of
5:23
American languages as a symptom of social decay. In keeping with their heathen character,
5:29
missionaries widely assumed that indigenous people had failed to impose grammatical discipline on their
5:34
languages. Obviously, grammatical discipline on their languages
5:39
obviously that's all kinds of wrong but if we focus very narrowly on the language
5:45
sciences the issue it raises is how their contempt for these languages might have impacted
5:50
the way they analyze them feelings don't care about facts as it were the biases
5:55
we hold can color how we interpret the facts which ones were more likely to
6:00
notice which ones were more likely to ignore and so on but in the larger
6:04
scale of things these are But in the larger scale of things, these are just
6:10
minor issues related to whether or not they did a good job analyzing the languages
6:14
they encountered. Obviously, the bigger story isn't that. The bigger story is how these missionaries
6:20
were part of a much bigger colonial enterprise that caused immense harm, destroying and subjugating
6:26
many cultures on their path. For some missionaries, that connection between evangelism and
6:31
colonialism was quite explicit. For example, David Livingston, who in over 30 years in Africa
6:37
managed to convert exile. David Livingston, who in over thirty years in Africa managed to
6:42
convert exactly one person, not two, not three, one, he wrote,
6:48
quote, Sending the gospel to the heathen must include much more than is implied in
6:53
the usual picture of a missionary, namely, a man going about with a Bible under
6:58
his arm. The promotion of commerce ought to be especially attended to, as this, more
7:03
speedily than anything else demolishes that sense of isolation which heathenism engenders,
7:09
and makes the tribes feel themselves
7:15
mutually dependent on and mutually beneficial to each other. For neither
7:20
civilization nor Christianity can be promoted alone. In fact, they are
7:26
inseparable. The founder of SIL, California -born William Cameron Townsend,
7:32
saw things differently. For him, the work of a missionary was very much about a
7:37
man going about with a Bible under his arm. And he wanted Very much about
7:41
a man going about with a Bible under his arm. And he wanted that Bible
7:45
to be in the language of the people he was trying to reach.
7:52
In the late 1910s, Townsend traveled to Guatemala to sell Spanish Bibles for a U
7:58
.S.-based publishing house. After a few years, he joined an evangelical mission that was trying
8:03
to minister to the indigenous Caxical people. While Christianity was gaining traction in the country
8:09
overall, it wasn't bringing in many and... was gaining traction in the country overall, it
8:14
wasn't bringing in many indigenous converts. Townsend believed that the main reason for this was
8:20
first that the indigenous people were illiterate, and second, that even if they were to
8:24
become literate, they still wouldn't have access to the bible in their own language. So
8:29
he set out to address those two issues. In a way, this is a very
8:33
Protestant way of going about things. If we compare it to Catholic missionary work, we
8:38
see two different trends emerge. Obviously this is going to be a massive over See,
8:43
two different trends emerge. Obviously, this is going to be a massive oversimplification, because what
8:48
we're talking about encompasses a wide variety of things over multiple centuries. But essentially,
8:54
in the Catholic tradition, overall, it's been more about inducting people into a community of
8:59
faith and practice. It didn't matter all that much if converts were illiterate, and it
9:05
didn't matter all that much if the language used wasn't the native language of the
9:09
people. If there's some regional lingua franquia that most people can more or less understand.
9:13
If there's some regional lingua franqua that most people can more or less understand, that's
9:18
good enough. It also tended to be a bit more of a top -down approach.
9:23
If you look at how the Catholic Church spread throughout Europe, you'll find many examples
9:27
of missionaries targeting the social elite and political leadership first, and once they converted
9:33
them, the rest followed from there. They replicated that same approach when they arrived in
9:38
the Americas, focusing on the languages spoken by the elite, like Nahuatl, which was the
9:43
language of nobility and had become
9:49
a lingua franqua for the elite classes of much of Mesoamerica. So they focused primarily
9:55
on those kinds of languages, and less on the smaller, less prestigious languages spoken by
10:00
commoners. Again, these are just general trends, it doesn't mean that they didn't preach to
10:05
commoners at all, or didn't study any of their languages at all. In addition to
10:09
that, the Catholic Church was also rather reluctant when it came to translating the
10:15
Rather reluctant when it came to translating the Bible into local vernaculars, in part because
10:21
they feared that if you left people to their own devices, they might end up
10:24
interpreting the Bible in ways that the church would consider heretical. In the Protestant tradition
10:30
on the other hand, and again, this is a huge oversimplification, missionary work has been
10:35
less about induction into a community and more about individual faith, and this has gone
10:41
hand in hand with literacy. Not just literacy, but if you want each person to
10:46
be Literacy. Not just literacy, but if you want each person to be individually persuaded
10:52
by the gospel, you want that gospel to be in the language that resonates the
10:56
most with them, namely their mother tongue. It's what Townsend would later call the language
11:02
of the heart. It wasn't enough to share the gospel in a lingua franca that
11:06
people understood. It needed to be in the language they identified with the most. So
11:11
Townsend wanted to bring literacy to the Kakshikel and translate the Bible into their language.
11:16
Kapchekel and translate the Bible into their language. Over the years he realized that if
11:21
he wanted to do this right, he would need actual linguistic expertise. The evangelical missionaries
11:27
of his day weren't Jesuits, they didn't usually have that kind of higher education or
11:32
formal academic training. Townsend just didn't have the expertise he needed to be able to
11:37
study Kapchekel and translate the Bible into it. So he reached out to some of
11:42
the more influential figures in US linguistics like Edward Sapir, leveraging their advice
11:51
he founded the Summer Institute of Linguistics, or SIL for short, in the early 1930s.
11:57
The aim of SIL was to train missionaries in linguistics, with the end goal of
12:02
translating the Bible into the languages they encountered. As SIL grew, the end goal would
12:08
become to do this in all of the languages of the world, thus accomplishing the
12:13
Great Commission, which is the instruction that Jesus gave his disciples to spread the Gospel
12:18
to them. which is the instruction that Jesus gave his disciples to spread the gospel
12:22
to the entire planet. One of the first students at SIL was Kenneth Pike.
12:28
would have become a renowned linguist in his own right, later becoming a member of
12:32
the National Academy of Sciences and the Linguistic Society of America, of which he became
12:37
president for a while. Pike was instrumental in professionalizing SIL and turning it into a
12:43
legitimate linguistics program. But SIL is only half the picture. When Townsend started to
12:48
expand his But SIL is only half the picture. When Townsend started to expand his
12:53
activities into Mexico, he ran into a problem. The government was supportive of SIL working
12:59
there to help build literacy among indigenous groups, but they didn't allow missionary work in
13:04
their education system, so if SIL was a missionary organization, they had to go. The
13:09
solution Townsend came up with was a kind of two -headed, Janus -like structure. On
13:14
one side you had SIL, but SIL would now be an academic organization focused on
13:20
But SIL would now be an academic organization focused on training people in linguistics and
13:26
promoting literacy. And on the other side you had Wycliffe Bible Translators, a missionary
13:32
organization focused on translating the Bible and spreading the gospel. There's a huge amount of
13:37
overlap between the two, but technically they're two different organizations. Since SIL was
13:43
no longer a missionary organization, not officially anyway, they were allowed to continue their work
13:49
in Mexico. They were allowed to continue their work in Mexico. Over the years,
13:55
this dual setup allowed Townsend to switch back and forth when convenient. Through Wycliffe, he
14:01
appealed to evangelical congregations and wealthy evangelical donors in the U .S. to get funding
14:06
for his missionary work. Through SIL, he got academic recognition, which in turn allowed
14:12
him to appeal to the U .S. government for public funding and support. And he
14:17
wasn't the only one who found that dual setup convenient. It was also convenient for
14:21
various politicians. on that dual setup convenient. It was also convenient for various political actors
14:27
in Latin America. Whenever there was political opposition to SIL because of its missionary work,
14:32
the government could just say, no, look, SIL's an academic endeavor. They're here to document
14:38
languages and promote literacy. They aren't missionaries. And on the other hand, whenever it was
14:43
politically expedient to criticize the Catholic Church, political actors could say that, by supporting
14:49
SIL, they were supporting an evangelical group that competed with the Catholics. SIL, they were
14:54
supporting an evangelical group that competed with the Catholic Church. That duality is also
15:00
reflected in how SIL missionaries make their case towards the rest of linguistics. They tend
15:05
to emphasize the linguistic side of their work, and when the missionary side is brought
15:09
up, it's often minimized or dismissed through a bit of semantic quibbling. Apparently, in
15:15
some evangelical circles, a missionary is specifically someone who founds new churches. And since
15:21
they don't do that, more on that in the next section.
15:28
then by that definition, they're not missionaries. For those of us who aren't evangelical and
15:33
use the more common definition of missionary, that explanation can seem like a bit of
15:38
a stretch, like they're trying to get off on a technicality. After all, their purpose
15:43
is still to convert people to Christianity. In the more common definition of the term,
15:48
they're undoubtedly missionaries. Linguist? Sure, but also missionaries. That
15:53
dual identity course sure, but also missionaries. That dual identity courses through all
15:59
levels of SIL, from the organizational structure all the way down to the individual linguists
16:05
slash missionaries. Janus through and through.
16:13
Townsend's legacy is mixed to say the least, and his story is complicated, caught up
16:19
in many of the big political upheavals of his day. His complicated legacy can perhaps
16:24
best be summed up with this little
16:29
factoid. In 1972, the Inter -American Indian Institute bestowed on
16:35
Townsend the title of Benefactor of the Linguistically Isolated Population of America.
16:41
In 1980, just eight years later, the institute passed a resolution to strip him of
16:47
that title. When that resolution passed, many of the delegates stood up and gave the
16:51
resolution a standing ovation. In his early years, compared to other U .S.
17:01
evangelicals, Townsend was rather progressive in his support for indigenous people. Townsend's idea of missionary
17:07
work was for a missionary to just spread the gospel and then leave the rest
17:11
up to the people. The missionary wasn't supposed to start a church, lead a flock,
17:16
or insist on changing the culture. He was just supposed to spread the gospel. If
17:20
there was a church, it should be founded and led by the indigenous people themselves.
17:28
themselves. Townsend also valued indigenous cultures, at least in the aspects that
17:34
didn't conflict too much with his version of Christianity. Their clothing, food, music, and so
17:39
on. All of this was in stark contrast with what most U .S. fundamentalists wanted.
17:45
For the most part, they were uncomfortable with things like indigenous clothing, music, and whatnot,
17:50
and thought that churches should be led by U .S.-based pastors, not local indigenous ones.
17:56
So, in that context, you can see how indigenous ones. So, in that context, you
18:02
can see how Townsend would seem like a voice in favor of indigenous rights. But,
18:07
over the course of his life, things changed quite a bit. Put it this way,
18:11
when the big US multinationals, like oil companies and whatnot, when they arrived in Latin
18:17
America, it was more often with the help of missionaries than with the help of
18:21
soldiers. And when soldiers were involved, it seemed that SIL was never too far away.
18:27
All of those things were intertwined in one way. never too far away. All of
18:32
those things were intertwined in one big, messy ball of thread called colonialism. To read
18:38
about the history of SIL is to read about people like the Rockefellers, or things
18:42
like the US military and the CIA. In Barbados in 1971, the World
18:48
Council of Churches, an international Christian organization that promotes ecumenism, held a conference
18:54
in which they discussed allegations that SIL, among other missionary groups, was contributing
19:00
to the destruction of indigenous
19:06
populations. In the declaration they drafted during that conference, they demanded that the missions
19:12
quote, halts both the theft of Indian property by religious missionaries who
19:17
appropriate labor, lands, and natural resources as their own, and the indifference in the
19:23
face of expropriation by third parties. They concluded that quote, to the degree
19:29
that religious missions do not assume these
19:35
minimal obligations, they too must be held responsible by default for crimes of
19:41
ethnocide and connivance with genocide. These aren't small charges. People
19:47
from SIL will point out that they've never been formally found guilty of anything. In
19:52
1975, a formal charge was filed against them to the Committee on Ethics of the
19:58
American Anthropological Association. After examining the case, the committee Psychological Association.
20:04
After examining the case, the committee exonerated SIL. But that wasn't enough to shake the
20:09
feeling that there was some connection between SIL and some of the worst actions taken
20:14
by either the U .S. or local governments. In one case, it led to the
20:19
death of an SIL missionary. In 1981, Chet Bitterman was in Colombia to work on
20:25
the Carijona language. He was abducted and later executed by M -19, a
20:30
revolutionary nationalist movement that apparently 19, a revolutionary nationalist movement
20:36
that apparently believed SIL was a front for the CIA, or at least that's the
20:41
more common narrative. If you try to dig into it a bit more, it rapidly
20:45
turns into one of those bewildering whodunit stories like JFK or Epstein.
20:51
Townsend's legacy wasn't the only one to fall into disrepute, or at least to be
20:56
more openly challenged than it once was. A few years after touring the US, Rachel
21:01
Saint managed to go live with the WoW Rally. After touring the US, Rachel Saint
21:05
managed to go live with the Waorani and start ministering to them. At the same
21:10
time, extractive industries like oil and logging were eyeing Waorani territory and
21:15
beginning to encroach on it. Not that this was the first time. In the late
21:20
19th century, the abundance of rubber in the region had led to a rush of
21:24
foreign companies seeking to make a profit. The local indigenous groups, including the Waorani, were
21:29
violently suppressed and forced into slavery in what is now known as the Putumaiogenes. and
21:35
forced into slavery in what is now known as the Putumayo Genocide. In 2024,
21:41
Demonte Nenquimo, a member of the Waorani and influential indigenous activist, published a book
21:47
entitled We Will Not Be Saved. In the US, the title was changed to We
21:52
Will Be Jaguars, since apparently it's too abrasive for US audiences to hear that some
21:58
people don't need and don't want their saving, he said, struggling to keep the snark
22:04
in check. He said, struggling to keep the snark in check. Anyway,
22:10
Nen Kimo frames Saint's work with the Waorani as destructive. With photographic evidence, she
22:16
argues that Saint had welcomed and collaborated with oil executives to start extracting oil on
22:22
Waorani lands, destroying their traditional environment. In the description, I'll leave some references
22:28
to books that explore these issues of SIL, extractive industries, and colonialism in more
22:34
detail, along with a recent video from the
22:40
channel genetically modified skeptic which discusses this angle in more detail but what about
22:46
townsend's legacy for linguistics on that front a different picture begins to emerge
22:51
sil's primary contribution to linguistics is the fact that they've documented a significant
22:57
amount of languages when it comes to small indigenous languages and remote places that are
23:03
hard to access there's a lot we probably wouldn't there's a lot we
23:08
probably wouldn't know if it weren't for them. SIL may also provide more concrete material
23:14
assistance for other linguists. Like, if you're a researcher and you want to work on
23:18
a language in the Amazon, and they're the ones that have the logistics to get
23:22
there, the ability to provide accommodation and whatnot, you may end up relying on SIL
23:28
at one point or another. They've also developed software for language documentation for things like
23:34
organizing and annotating audio data, managing lexical data, organizing and annotating audio data,
23:40
managing lexical data, or just typing in various languages, all of which might be useful
23:46
for linguists who aren't affiliated with them. And then there's the more policy -based and
23:51
public -facing side of things. They're involved in a number of projects to promote literacy
23:56
and to protect endangered languages. They've partnered with some big UN agencies like UNESCO
24:02
or ECOSOC. They run the publication Ethnolog, which is probably the most extensive
24:08
database for basic demographic
24:13
information on the world's languages. They're also the language coding agency for the ISO
24:19
6393 standard, which gives languages a three -letter code that is then used for a
24:25
variety of practical purposes. For example, just as a tidbit, if you want to add
24:29
a new language to Wikipedia, your language needs to have an ISO 6393 code. If
24:35
you don't have one, you'd have to ask SIL. Their role is by no means
24:39
small, and linguistics as a
24:45
field has benefited from their work. If we align our stance with that of indigenous
24:49
activists like Nenkemo, this puts us in an awkward position. The very thing that has
24:54
allowed us to study these languages is also the thing that is destroying them.
25:03
This blurry cohabitation between linguistics and missionary work, exemplified today by SIL,
25:09
is of course a source work, exemplified today by SIL, is of course a source
25:14
of controversy. For someone like me who's very critical of missionary work, it can be
25:19
tempting to just single out SIL and focus exclusively on the religious aspect. But at
25:25
the risk of being accused of whataboutism and equivocation, I think it might be a
25:29
bit more insightful to take a step back and situate SIL in the broader context
25:35
it operates in. Consider that if SIL is in the position it's in, it's because
25:40
there is nobody else to do it. SIL is in the position it's in, it's
25:44
because there is nobody else to do it. If governments turn to SIL for literacy
25:48
or revitalization programs, or if ISO turns to SIL to manage its language codes,
25:54
it's because they're the ones who have the expertise and systems in place to do
25:58
it. They're filling that niche because no one else has, or will. In other words,
26:03
to criticize SIL for filling those roles is also to criticize linguistics as a whole
26:08
for not rising up to the challenge in the first place. It's an for not
26:13
rising up to the challenge in the first place. It's a known problem. In 1991,
26:19
linguist Michael Krauss delivered a lecture at the Linguistic Society of America in which he
26:24
famously said, quote, obviously we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities
26:29
lest linguistics go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the
26:35
disappearance of 90 % of the very field to which it is dedicated.
26:47
Many heeded his warning, and since then there's been an increase in efforts to document
26:52
the many languages of the world and assist in revitalization projects and whatnot. So
26:58
things are headed in the right direction. Some might say it's too little too late,
27:03
others might say better late than never, but either way, it's never a waste to
27:07
try and participate in those efforts and push policy a bit further in that direction.
27:12
More broadly, if we don't disseminate bit further in that direction. More broadly, if we
27:17
don't disambiguate what exactly SIL's faults are, it can be tempting to explain away some
27:23
of their faults as being the result of their religious nature, when they're really not,
27:28
and in fact some of those faults are ubiquitous in academia and society as a
27:32
whole. We mentioned some of the issues with missionaries in the age of exploration and
27:36
colonialism. One was that they sometimes tried too hard to apply the Greco -Latin model
27:42
where it didn't the Greco -Latin model where it didn't apply.
27:48
Another was that they looked down on these languages and the people who spoke them.
27:52
In one word, they were Eurocentric. But is that unique to missionaries? Hardly.
27:58
It's an accusation you could levy against even the least religious language scholars of the
28:02
time. For SIL in the 20th century, a lot of what they seem to be
28:07
guilty of is what David Stoll called a Hail Caesar approach. Essentially,
28:12
as long as they could go ahead with their own mission of evangelizing, Eventually, as
28:16
long as they could go ahead with their own mission of evangelizing, they were willing
28:20
to turn a blind eye to all the bad things their work could lead to
28:24
and collaborate with larger destructive forces like extractive industries or authoritarian regimes
28:30
and so on. But is that something they're uniquely guilty of? A non -religious linguist
28:35
would also struggle with things like access if they took too strong a stance against
28:39
government policies. They might find it tempting to give in to small compromises if it
28:44
means they can keep compromises if it means they can keep on doing their work.
28:49
What about the linguists who used military funding for the early research on computational linguistics?
28:55
Did they support warfare or was it yet another case of hail Caesar, disregarding the
29:01
consequences their work could have downstream as long as they were allowed to continue doing
29:05
it? What about those working on LLMs today? Do they support the
29:10
disenfranchisement of large sections of the workforce or is it yet another case of hail
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Caesar? Just the workforce? Or is it yet another case of Hail Caesar, just not
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feeling particularly responsible for the consequences your work can have, as long as you're allowed
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to continue doing it? There's a moral conundrum there that isn't specific to missionaries, but
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that courses through many aspects of society. Scientists who voice mild criticism of these
29:38
issues are a dime a dozen. Scientists who will take a stronger stance and actually
29:42
do something about it, those are few and far between. For contrast, take Louis Freiburg.
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are few and far between. For contrast, take Lewis Fry Richardson, a mathematician and
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physicist who was active in the first half of the 20th century and who is
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known for his work on the so -called coastline paradox, as well as his work
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on meteorology. Richardson was a Quaker and a resolute pacifist.
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According to some accounts, when he discovered that his work on meteorology was useful for
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chemical weapons designers, he destroyed the findings he hadn't published yet and he stopped working
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on that line. destroyed the findings he hadn't published yet, and he stopped working on
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that line of research. For him, whatever advances he could have made to scientific knowledge
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didn't outweigh the value of a human life. That's what it looks like when a
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person refuses to say, Hail Caesar. This isn't some moralistic, holier -than
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-thou conclusion on my part. The world's a complicated place, and I certainly don't have
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all the answers. Some would argue that what I'm suggesting here is supererogatory, beyond
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the call of duty. Suggesting here is supererogatory, beyond the call of duty, as it
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were. Like, yeah, it sucks that my work is being used for nasty purposes, but
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it's not my responsibility to do anything about it. Maybe that's valid, but I figure
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that if I'm in the mountain in Quimau and a linguist shows up at my
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door, I'd probably much prefer it be someone with the moral backbone of a Lewis
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Fry Richardson, someone whose ethical standards wouldn't allow them to pursue knowledge if it came
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at the expense of destroying my own community. to pursue knowledge if it came at
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the expense of destroying my own community. I'd much prefer that than anyone who would
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turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions. The way I see it,
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we need more Nemontanin Chimos in this world, and we need more Lewis Fry Richardsons,
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at the very least, just so that occasionally, every once in a while, we're reminded
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of what it looks like when a human being stands up
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